Chris Connor reviews the fifth episode of Slow Horses season 4…
After the cliffhanger at the end of Slow Horses’ previous episode, the penultimate episode moves along at a relentless pace, setting up an explosive conclusion. River and Flyte are en route to the park with the new head of the dogs trying to decipher why he was in France and what happened with his grandfather.
The pair’s first interactions in the series are a highlight with Jack Lowden and Ruth Bradley’s chemistry, pitch-perfect, bouncing off each other wonderfully undercutting the tension with moments of piercing humour, something Will Smith and the whole team have nailed in this series especially.
Alongside this Claude and Diana continue to deliver another delightful double act with Claude’s more assertive position aligning with Diana’s to try and keep the escalating situation and nature of the cold bodies under wraps and away from prying eyes. Hugo Weaving is given a more prominent role here, showing his hand as he tries to keep tabs on the movements of his rivals.
As with the novel Spook Street, it has been a slow but rewarding build-up in terms of his motives and the size of his role but having an actor of Weaving’s calibre is of course worth the build-up. It is also always a treat to see Molly, the Park’s archivist, here working alongside Weaving.
The rest of Slough House is given more to do as they plan their next move and prepare how to deal with Patrice, should he rear his head again while trying to work out what might have happened to bad Sam.
This episode again finds the perfect balance between building tension and delivering laugh out loud moments aplenty, never hitting the wrong note. The storylines are all compelling cramming plenty into the episode’s 40 minute runtime while setting up the finale to come. While the show has always been an ensemble affair, the balance of the cast in this particular series has been something special from the leads like Jack Lowden and Gary Oldman to smaller parts like Jonathan Pryce and new additions James Callis and Tom Brooke.
Chris Connor
